Bibliography

An American Dream By Norman Mailer
An Annotated Bibliography



Bufithis, Philip H. Norman Mailer An American Dream 1923. Literature

Resource Center. Gale Group Databases. Macon State College Library,

Macon, Ga. 19 Mar. 2007

Philip says that Stephen Rojack’s primary commitment is to understand the mysterious region and then to eventually act in the world to substantiate his newfound knowledge. Stephen Rojack is trying to cast off his old identities and become reborn into a new person. Deborah was part of his past so he has to rid of her to move on in his new life. He thinks that Stephen is being held back from Deborah and that is why he kills her. He says that Mailer has defined character in his novel with an endless series of second chances for Stephen. He states that Mailer wrote this story as the mind of primordial being and that is what Stephen Rojack was trying. He refers to Rojack as a hero in this story when many people consider him a murderer.

In this short essay over An American Dream Philip states that Mailer believes that insanity is unavoidable in America. He doesn’t believe that insanity should be a rule out for people who murder and that many of Mailer’s novels that involve murder was a type of sickness instead of insanity. He was saying that Stephan Rojack is not considered insane but maybe he had some type of sickness that led him to kill his Deborah.





Gordon, Andrew. Norman Mailer An American Dream 1923. Literature

Resource Center. Gale Group Databases. Macon State College Library,

Macon, Ga. 19 Mar. 2007

This writer says that An American Dream is America as dream and nightmare, seen by Jewish outsider. This short summary says that Stephen commits violence to prevent the death of the soul. The character Stephen Rojack kills his wife and gets away with murder and that he is a war correspondent. He says that Mailer is concerned with the inter play between the various forms of American Power, including sex, politics, and monwy.

Andrew Gordon wrote this short essay to help understand a point of view that maybe someone else had not seen. This source was reliable and I could have looked up his information also.

This helped me find more information to write my blog and to understand more of the book and information that I didn’t understand with different points of views.




Lennon, Michael J. Norman Mailer An American Dream 1923. Literature

Resource Center. Gale Group Databases. Macon State College Library,

Macon, Ga. 19 Mar. 2007

Michael approaches this story as Stephen Rojack trying to have personal victory over society. He states that he kills Deborah Kelly because he thought that his marriage to her would bring about positive aspects to the relationship like leading him into presidency. In the end his marriage actually brings him down and the only way out of the war between them is killing her. Michael thinks that Stephen Rojack was never given a chance to live and also wants to commit suicide and takes his problem to Deborah instead.

He thinks that Cherry, Stephen’s new love would maybe never been killed if he had spent the night in Harlem instead of visiting Barney Kelly. Stephen then takes off after her murder and lives his life without Cherry and Deborah.